The Silent and the Damned aka The Vanished Hands

the Israelis by the present administration, became too much for the Islamic die-hards. He thought this was the Holy War that both parties had been waiting for; we were going back centuries to the Crusades, except that the arena was now larger and the techniques available more devastating.

'When al-Qaeda hit our symbol of the American empire – and Rafael reckoned that to wake up 250 million people from a state of somnolent comfort you needed a very loud bang – he thought that the truly terrible thing for us was to discover that al-Qaeda knew us better than we did ourselves. They had understood what makes our society tick - our demand for outstanding presentation and our need to make an impact. He attached a lot of importance to the time lag between the first plane hitting and the second. It meant that the world media would be there.'

'I'm surprised there wasn't an exchange of blows between you,' said Falcon.

'That was a summary of his beliefs about 9/11, not our discussions,' said Marty. 'I did a lot of storming out and he talked me back in. There were days when diplomatic relations were cut completely. He was surprised by my anger. He hadn't realized how much anger there was pent up in America.'

'Can you relate any of that to the note that was discovered in Sr Vega's hand?'

'I've been trying to and I can't see it.'

'Your wife says that you're certain he'd lived in

America, and that he liked it,' said Falcon. 'And yet he held these views which would annoy plenty of Americans…'

'They're not so different to what most Europeans secretly think. Inspector Jefe. That's why a lot of my fellow countrymen now see Europeans as treacherous and envious.'

'Envious?'

'Yes, something else Rafael had an opinion on. He said Europeans don't envy the American way – its society is too aggressive for them to be envious of it. And, anyway, envy does not inspire hate. What they are, he said, is afraid of Americans and fear does inspire hate.'

'What do Europeans fear?'

'That with all our economic might and political strength we have the power to make their efforts irrelevant – you know, the Kyoto agreement, trade tariffs, the ICC -'

'And yet, Sr Vega was relentlessly pro-American.'

'If you're as anti-communist as he was, you have to be,' said Marty. 'The point was he didn't think emotionally. He certainly didn't approve of al-Qaeda. He just saw it as the… way things go. Playground bullies eventually get punched on the nose and it always comes from the least expected direction. He also believed that once the rest saw blood they'd dive in afterwards. As far as Rafael was concerned this was the beginning of the end for the American empire.'

'I'm surprised you were prepared to put up with his talk,' said Falcon. 'Your wife kept reminding me that you think it's the greatest nation on earth.'

'It didn't make me want to kill him, if that's what you're implying, Inspector Jefe,' said Marty, looking out from under his eyebrows. 'All you've got to do is look at history. Rafael said that America, like the empires before them, would lash out. They'd have to. But it would either be a wild flailing against something too small to be seen, or they would crush, with excessive force and expensive might, the wrong enemy. There'd be a gradual weakening, followed by economic melt-down. This was where I think he was wrong, because the one thing that America would always pay attention to was the dollar. They would never allow anything to jeopardize that.'

'These discussions went on for a long time. Your wife said until dawn.'

'And as the brandy bottle got emptier and the end of Rafael's cigar got soggier, his ideas got wilder,' said Marty. 'He believed that the American empire would end, not in our lifetime but before the end of the century, and that one of two things would happen. Either the Chinese would take over and stamp an even more rapacious form of capitalism on the world, or there would be a reaction against capitalism's decadence. In which case there would be a religious empire which would come from the most populous nations on earth (rather than our dying nations of retirees) and that it would be Islamic.'

'My God,' said Falcon.

'Allah is great, you mean. Inspector Jefe,' said Marty.

'We've seen from your wife's photographs that Sr Vega was in some sort of crisis that dated from the end of last year. This was confirmed by his doctor. Was there any difference in the way your talks developed around that time?'

'He drank more,' said Marty. 'Sometimes he would pass out for a few minutes. I remember once going over to cover him with a blanket and, just as I reached him, his eyes opened and I could see he was very frightened. He started to plead with me as if he was a prisoner begging not to be taken away for torture, until he remembered who I was and where we were.'

'Sr Ortega mentioned that he seemed very disappointed by the American concept of loyalty,' said Falcon. 'That they were your friends until they no longer had any use for you. Do you know where that came from?'

'In business, I imagine. He never spoke about specifics. He took honour very seriously. He seemed to operate on a strict code, which seemed quite old- fashioned by modern standards. He was dismayed by the more practical American belief: honour's fine until you start losing money, then it all goes out the window.'

'It sounded more personal than that. He wouldn't be such a successful businessman if he didn't have a more relaxed code of morality as far as money was concerned. There was a business aspect to his marriage arrangement. His code was such that, having given his word, he wouldn't leave his wife because of her mental state, but it was loose enough that he would marry to get his hands on the property in the first place.'

'So, you tell me,' said Marty.

Falcon flipped through his notes.

'Pablo Ortega reported him as saying: 'as soon as you stop making money for them or giving them information they drop you like a stone.''

'Well, that sounds weird, like some sort of corporate espionage. Money. Information. If he was into that

I don't know where he'd expect to find honour in that world.'

'Or was it politics?' said Falcon. 'Your conversations were primarily political.'

'I can't think that politics would have any bearing on his death here in Seville.'

'Do you know anything about the Russian investors in Sr Vega's projects?'

'I know that there are some, but that's all. I'm just the architect. I do the drawings, I manage the practicalities, but I don't meet the investors. That happens at a higher level, a business level.'

'These Russians are known mafiosi and we're pretty sure they're laundering money through Sr Vega's projects.'

'It's possible. That's the nature of the construction industry. But I don't know anything about it. I'm on the creative side.'

'Can you think of any reason why the Russians should want to kill Sr Vega?'

'He was cheating on them? That's normally why you get killed by the mafia. But that will be difficult to prove.'

'We've had threats,' said Falcon. 'Have you been threatened?'

'Not yet.'

If Marty Krugman was nervous he wasn't showing it to Falcon. The basketball pumps stayed up on the desk. He was relaxed.

'Why did you leave America, Sr Krugman?' asked Falcon, moving into the third phase of his interview.

'You've asked me that before.'

'Your answer's going to be different now that Reza Sangari is out in the open.'

'Then you already know the answer.'

'I want to hear you tell it.'

'We decided that if our relationship was going to survive we had to get away from the environment in which it started. We both love Europe. We thought a simple life together would bring us closer.'

'But this isn't a simple life – big city, job, house in Santa Clara.'

'We tried a small house in Provence to start with. It didn't work.'